When Terror Alerts = Lies

Tom Ridge revealed today that terror alerts were used to manipulate public opinion during the 2004 presidential election. In his 2004 presidential bid, Dennis Kucinich often spoke of the terror alerts and how they were used by the Bush administration to raise fear and keep people in line. Mainstream media dismissed Kucinich and the Left as knee-jerk Bush-haters, and so their suspicions and claims were never taken seriously. Now they are vindicated and the fact that Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush were pulling the levers of terror-alerts to control the voting fingers of Americans comes as no surprise to many of us.

This is lying. These were lies told by the President and his men to manipulate public opinion. Raising a terror alert based on 3 to 4-year old information, just because you recently received the information is the same as telling a lie. You are saying it is new information, when you know the truth is that it is old information.

And there is a precedent to their lies. The summary execution of suspected terrorists by Predator drone missiles on the eve of the 2002 mid-term elections was the first picture I had seen that year that provided any evidence of success in the new "War on Terror." I found it odd that a picture of a decimated terrorist's car should appear on the front page of the LA Times the day before the election. With Ridge's revelations today, it appears we have a pattern of this kind of behavior to sway public opinion. How can we sway it the other way, with hope instead of fear?